WAYCROSS, Ga. – A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher,
bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and
assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said Tuesday.

The plot involving as many as nine boys and girls at
Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat,
Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said.

School officials alerted police Friday after a student tipped off a teacher
that a girl had brought a weapon to school. Tanner said the students
apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious with a crystal paperweight,
bind her with the handcuffs and tape and then stab her with the knife.

“We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her,
but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely,”
Tanner said. “We feel like if they weren’t interrupted, there would have been an attempt.
Would they have been successful? We don’t know.”

The children, ages 8 to 10, were apparently upset with the teacher
because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.

Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges Tuesday and a third arrest was expected.

District Attorney Rick Currie said other students told investigators they didn’t take the plot seriously or insisted they had decided not to participate.

“Some of the kids said, ‘We thought they were just kidding,’ ” Currie said.